


The Mettle of Your Pasture

by SylvanWitch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-05
Updated: 2012-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-04 20:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maybe their destiny isn't so bad after all.  Episode coda for 7:21.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mettle of Your Pasture

“You think we should’ve stayed?”

 

“We’ve been over this already, Dean.  Cas will come back if and when he wants to.  It’s not going to matter where we are.  He’ll find us or he won’t.  Besides, the angels can’t be the only ones who noticed when Meg killed those demons.”

 

“Yeah, I know, it’s just…”

 

Dean’s silence says a lot to Sam.  It says that his brother wishes he’d had more time with Cas.  Wishes Cas had been more like his old self.

 

Wishes they could have gotten the angel to agree to see the world on their terms.  

 

The thing is, Sam is starting to suspect that there’s nothing wrong with Castiel, or at least nothing that needs fixing.  Given what the angel had wrought, the pain he’d invited, the torment he’d survived, maybe he’s better off wandering the world for a couple of millennia, finding or even letting go of himself.

 

Considering the high-handed way the angels play with others’ lives, Sam thinks maybe Castiel’s gotten off easy.

 

He blinks away a sudden, vivid image of Kevin, eyes dim with recognition that whatever life he’d thought he’d had is gone forever.

 

Sam can relate.

 

“You miss him,” Sam says when the miles have put a comfortable buffer between Dean’s last near-confession and Sam’s answer.

 

“I miss—”

 

_Our old life_ goes unsaid.  Sam knows.  Hell, for years he’d majored in wishing before he’d finally given in to his own inevitable destiny. 

 

And look where it’s gotten him.

 

Sam spares a glance for his brother then, Dean’s slouch, the carefully neutral expression, the wrist draped over the wheel, all a show that says to the world, “I’m okay.  I’m fine.”

 

Probably, he is.  That he pretends anyway, even when it’s only Sam to see, gives Sam the strangest sense of hope, like maybe if Dean still has it in him to pretend, if he still bothers to put on the game face, they can’t be too far gone.

 

And after all of it—the loss and the betrayal, the grief and the grieved—they’re still here, side by side, trying.

 

Maybe their destiny isn’t so bad.  Maybe being chosen for something means knowing what really matters.

 

“You want to stop?” Sam asks as the lights of a diner sign loom out of the indistinct dusk ahead.

 

“I could eat.”

Gravel grumbles under the tires as they pull into the unpaved lot.  As they approach the door, Dean crows and points gleefully at a hand-lettered sign that reads: “Homemade Pies Baked Fresh Daily.”

 

_That’s destiny, too,_ Sam thinks, smiling, and they go inside together.

 


End file.
